22 replies to this topic

[Minerexstacy]

I honestly do not know what to expect with the crafting professions, but I was wondering if there will be gathering ones too instead of farming monsters for cloth or ore to make your armors. And if there are going to be professions like this, would they be class specific or would you be able to learn all of them at the same time? Or even be limited to which ones you can learn based on level or realm you choose to be in?

   In WoW, when I think of professions, I think of blacksmithing, tailoring, leatherworking, and alchemy. Blacksmithing requires mining to get your materials. Tailoring only needs cloth dropped from almost any monster that is Humanoid or undead. Leatherworking is from skinning dead animals. And alchemy is from gathering herbs. 

 

Here's what I think professions should be like if not already. (Keep in mind this is coming form someone who <3 WoW)

 

Blacksmithing - You will mine your materials and go to any major city with a furnace and anvil, this is where you will be doing all your basic crafting, for more advanced crafting you would need multiple items from other professions to make the "High End" gear that everyone is dying for. (Sometimes literally)

 

Leatherworking - You skin the pelts of dead animals and turn them into armor, this could be done anywheer or at a specific stall for leatherworking. You can even go as far to add a tanner that would tan the hides into something you can use.

 

Tailoring - This could be a tricky one because it doesn't REQUIRE another profession to make any of the stuff... except maybe the "High-end" gear. All the materials you would ever need can be sold by a vendor or dropped by monsters.

 

Alchemy - This is where the main supply of potions and other things that minorly boost your stats to aid in combat would come from. You would need herb gathering to get the materials to amke these potions and as your progress the chain, the potions get better and better, and there would be some where only the one who made the potion can use them. AND even better >.> the Alchemist whould be able to turn things into gold.... LOL It would have a 10 minute cooldown timer, and the item you choose would be doubled in price and converted into gold which would be the currency. This would give a nice benefit than just having the ability to make potions

 

Now for the gathering professions...

 

Mining - Randomly around the maps of the world, there would be nodes that you can mine and they give you the ores. In starting zones lets say the first ore is copper/tin you would smelt those together to get bronze which would be the first tier of blacksmithing. Second tier would be Iron, then Mythril, and other materials which I don't want to take 100% from WoW but yea... having these nodes spread throught the map at all times not on a timer or anything... ( theres 250 nodes but only 75 are active all the time. When one is mined, another spawns in a different location.)

 

Skinning - When you kill a monster that is an animal or resembles an animal, you would skin it for the pelt, possibly take it to a tanner have it tanned for a small fee then you can use it in your leatherworking profession.

 

Herb Gathering (Herbalism to those other WoW fans) - Same as mining there would be nodes spread all around the map but only a certain number would be up at any given time. As your knowledge of the herbs grows, the more difficult ones like a cactus or something would become available to be picked.

 

For ALL the gathering professions, there should be at least a monster near by so you cannot just run in there care free and take the ore/herb.

[Indigo Shade]

This is a great post! I really enjoy crafting and gathering, and have done both in many MMO games. I seriously hope that if there are gathering professions, they do not count towards a players total "allowed" crafting skills. I've found this scenario in many games and it's frustrating. I think my most enjoyable "crafting and gathering" experiance overall was in EQII. It's been a while, but I do recall being able to gather just about any sort of resource, and that the gathering skills were not part of the "crafting" skills per se. Of other interest, in EQ II, if you are logged in and crafting, you gain bonus time to get extra XP while killing MOBS. LOL I made serious bank at high levels simply gathering rare nodes for high level players wanting to craft uber rare house items.

 

Also, assuming that a Player Auction house is in the works, please allow us to sell / trade harvested materials.

[Seagull]

I came across these screen shots in my research; they show several gathering/crafting skills which we will be able to utilize. 

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[Minerexstacy]

I came across these screen shots in my research; they show several gathering/crafting skills which we will be able to utilize. 

Well, that clarifys pretty much everything I wanted to know xD 

 

Thanks

[iambrad]

..."For ALL the gathering professions, there should be at least a monster near by so you cannot just run in there care free and take the ore/herb."

 

This would be a nice approach to guilds here.  For instance this gatherer, while maybe weak in combat would need some of this fellow guild members (warriors) to go in and clear out certain monsters so that he could gather resources. Maybe combat types are not able to collect resources as they are trained for combat reflexes and dont have the 'eye' to spot choice resources... Having characters strong in some skills and week in others but all of them are needed lets say to get though quests or to perfrom certain feats would really draw a guild together and give it a purpose besides just a collection of folks.

[SDGR]

One of the best fatures of a certain game I shall not name (yet so notorious that it's listed in the Guiness World Records  ) is that it managed to link everything together; there was no worthless profession because in the end everything was interlinked and it payed off to level up even the weirdest of them.  

 

For example one of the best ways to make money in that said game was to sell rare cooked fish; but that required you to be a highly skilled angler (duh), and also a very good cook with a high level in fire making. Why? because the best spot for fishing had no cooking facility so you were forced to cook over an open fire which increased the chance to burn the food, while making fire with higher lvl wood would require knowledge in fire making

 

Or wood cutting...seemed useless at first...but being able to cut down magic tress and also having a high level in fletching and crafting allowed you to make the best bows in game

 

So no matter what skill you were levelling you knew it was going to be worth the effort and seeing all coming together later on was very cool and provided many ways to make a lot of money and be competitive without being forced to fight all day long.  

 

Then there were the dedicated guilds for your profession that would grant additional benefits like increased production within the guild's facilities or increased ammounts of mats, or higher success percentage and even special features or quests that would be available to you only after being allowed to join that said guild.

 

All that gave a whole new dimension to the game and it didn't fel like just doing some boring repetitive activities

[Minerexstacy]

^ sounds like runescape

[SDGR]

^ sounds like runescape

 

Very good

 

Still, their system is the best I've ever seen implemented in a MMO; and that's also what other MMOs lack - they simply throw in some crafting skills that have no depth and ultimately no real value (since the really good stuff comes from boss killing / dungeons / etc) and they call it a "system".

 

I've always been amazed by the level of attention given to details in RS. Andrew was a genius and the things he could come up with were (still are) mind-blowing. That's what kept RS in business for so long - the ability to come up with stuff no other MMO would offer.

[Seagull]

Very good

 

Still, their system is the best I've ever seen implemented in a MMO; and that's also what other MMOs lack - they simply throw in some crafting skills that have no depth and ultimately no real value (since the really good stuff comes from boss killing / dungeons / etc) and they call it a "system".

 

I've always been amazed by the level of attention given to details in RS. Andrew was a genius and the things he could come up with were (still are) mind-blowing. That's what kept RS in business for so long - the ability to come up with stuff no other MMO would offer.

 

The problem in my opinion with the crafting skills in that particular game  is that eventually, the raw materials had more value than that of the finished products. This rendered many of the skills obsolete for the most part.  Do you have any ideas about how to prevent that type of situation from occurring?

[Savanc]

The problem in my opinion with the crafting skills in that particular game  is that eventually, the raw materials had more value than that of the finished products. This rendered many of the skills obsolete for the most part.  Do you have any ideas about how to prevent that type of situation from occurring?

Making the prices of raw materials and finished products based on a free market system, together with keeping an eye out that there will be demand for finished goods.

 

If the players can determine the prices then they will figure out prices that will work.

For example, a supplier of raw materials sells their goods to someone who makes them into finished products at a price of 30 gold per item.

The player who makes the finished products will need two pieces of raw material (that's 60 gold) and sells it to someone looking for the finished goods for a price of 90 gold.

 

Both players who made the products we able to make a fair profit. And if the profit is considered too high by other players then they can set up their own business and supply raw materials at 25 gold per piece, or make the finished products with a lower profit.

 

By keeping prices dynamic a lot of weird situations can be avoided.

 

 

 

It's however essential that there is enough demand all the time because otherwise a lot of players first choose to get the skills, but after a while they might be out of a job.

For example, if Mages require a lot of cotton clothing (because it increases their spell power) then skills that are associated with cotton production are very useful. But perhaps after a while a new type of cloth is discovered and Mages now desire this silk clothing. Then the cotton production skills will become a lot less useful, and that would be a shame for many players.

 

So it's important that skills remain their importance throughout the game.

[SDGR]

The problem in my opinion with the crafting skills in that particular game  is that eventually, the raw materials had more value than that of the finished products. This rendered many of the skills obsolete for the most part.  Do you have any ideas about how to prevent that type of situation from occurring?

 

I don't think it was actually intended to work like this, but IMO that happened because ppl failed to understand that professions were interlinked so instead of becoming highly qualified in more departments they were focusing on raising just one skill. For ex the high lvl smithers that wouldn't bother to mine coal for days, anglers that didn't bother to raise cooking and fire making, archers with no wood cutting skills and so on. And when they were finally realising their mistake they were forced to raise the other skills as well so they needed large quantities of raw mats. I always try to be self suficient in a MMO and not rely on others for various jobs - that saved me every time my char got hacked I'd simply grab an axe, mine coal or gold, cut the gems, make neckys, grab a fishing pole and in no time my gold and gear was back on

 

IMO in order to have a well thought working system it needs to be rewarding from start to endgame: either have limited supply of raw mats or being able to sell the finished products to NPC for a good ammount of gold, while at highest levels you'd be able to create the most powerful items in game - something you couldn't get from grinding or questing. Then it will be worth levelling every skill. Also interlink the various crafting skills in a coherent way: let's say you are a skilled smither that also learned magic so you'd be able to add magic attributes on gear. Or maybe you're also a skilled jeweller so the stones you can add to sockets would have increased quality and would grant additional stat points. Or maybe you're a good tanner that can make leather armor but you also have tailoring skills so you'd be able to produce really ornate pieces and even add a custom coat of arms or a guild's symbol, or a highly skilled hunter with a high taming skill that would allow you to catch rare beasts as pets....and so on.

 

Bottom line is: each skill should be fun to master and level up and should be rewarding in itself. If it feels like a waste of time, then it probably is a useless skill. They could also combine the crafting skills with combat skills and stats - like for example a good smither would get more defence points when wearing armor, a healer/mage with a high lvl alchemy/herbalism skill would be able to maintain the effect of certain pots longer, and vice-versa: if you're a warrior with a high lvl of proficiency on sword and axe, you could produce weapons with increased attributes...etc. 

[Crasken]

The problem in my opinion with the crafting skills in that particular game  is that eventually, the raw materials had more value than that of the finished products. This rendered many of the skills obsolete for the most part.  Do you have any ideas about how to prevent that type of situation from occurring?

Yes, I agree with this. Most of games I've played, well, nearly all of them that had open markets and crafting system this used to happen.. Raw materials cost more than finished products simply because those products have no demand.

 

Lets say that crafting skills are capped at level 50.

Usually on levels 1-45, products you make are "junk", average gear with fairly poor stats. That equipment have no demand as players are able to obtain much better gear through questing / creature drops or even from NCP shops. Also, usually low level crafting products are for low level players who outlevel their gear quickly. But still you must create these pieces of junk-equipment to level up in crafting skill. And players are willing to spend reasonable amounts of gold to buy raw materials which keep their prices high while finished products are probably sold to NCP shops or vendors.

When players reach crafting skill levels near max they are able to make worthy equipment that competes with equipment gained from rare drops ( dungeon boss loot etc. ) and naturally have demand. This gear is expensive but also requires finest raw materials that are hard to obtain and expensive. Making armour that requires level 50 crafting skill can be profitable, depends on market balance.

 

I think it's extremely hard to create demand for low level crafting skill products. To gain profit, my best advice is to stick with gathering skills. 

 

Crafting skills could be profitable if products are best of their class or completely unique. For example, if NCP stores only sold basic potions, would player with high alchemy skill surely make good coin out of his powerful brewings. But then situation like this makes more players favor this alchemy skill and market gets competition and higher supply. Price range becomes stable and most likely outcome would be small but steady profit for potionmakers.

[Seagull]

As I understand it, in Eldevin one must choose how to allocate a limited number of points towards attributes in regards to combat.  This means that one cannot have every single attribute at it's strongest level, but must pick and choose in order to create a custom build.  

 

I wonder if players will have to choose a focus in their crafts as well?  There would then be different builds that exist such as someone who is good at one thing but only average at another or someone who has very basic skills in everything, even someone who is extremely skilled in one niche. The positive impact of such a system would be that players would have rely on each other through trading and such to acquire certain items that they themselves are not skilled at crafting.  In other words, I think it would balance supply and demand to create a stable economic structure.

[SDGR]

Yes, I agree with this. Most of games I've played, well, nearly all of them that had open markets and crafting system this used to happen.. Raw materials cost more than finished products simply because those products have no demand.

 

Lets say that crafting skills are capped at level 50.

Usually on levels 1-45, products you make are "junk", average gear with fairly poor stats. That equipment have no demand as players are able to obtain much better gear through questing / creature drops or even from NCP shops. Also, usually low level crafting products are for low level players who outlevel their gear quickly. But still you must create these pieces of junk-equipment to level up in crafting skill. And players are willing to spend reasonable amounts of gold to buy raw materials which keep their prices high while finished products are probably sold to NCP shops or vendors.

When players reach crafting skill levels near max they are able to make worthy equipment that competes with equipment gained from rare drops ( dungeon boss loot etc. ) and naturally have demand. This gear is expensive but also requires finest raw materials that are hard to obtain and expensive. Making armour that requires level 50 crafting skill can be profitable, depends on market balance.

 

I think it's extremely hard to create demand for low level crafting skill products. To gain profit, my best advice is to stick with gathering skills. 

 

Crafting skills could be profitable if products are best of their class or completely unique. For example, if NCP stores only sold basic potions, would player with high alchemy skill surely make good coin out of his powerful brewings. But then situation like this makes more players favor this alchemy skill and market gets competition and higher supply. Price range becomes stable and most likely outcome would be small but steady profit for potionmakers.

 

It can be done: one way would be to incorporate in the recipes for the best items a crafter could make low level ingredients along the more rare/expensive ones.

[Bryn]

Once I join the Beta ,  I will hound the Cows until crafted items are worth the time and effort!  Really, why put effort into a crafting system, if better stuff is easily obtained? 

 

Question:  I don't see being average in many crafting/gathering skills as advantageous, but will we get enough points to max more than one skill?

[Othimos]

What i would do is incorparate low lvl items with higher levels ones.. one way would be to make it so that you need X amount of the lower lvel item to be able to craft the higher level one.

[SDGR]

What i would do is incorparate low lvl items with higher levels ones.. one way would be to make it so that you need X amount of the lower lvel item to be able to craft the higher level one.

 

Yup, that could work As long as the game allows stacking, it will be a way to keep low level mats in demand.

[Minerexstacy]

As I understand it, in Eldevin one must choose how to allocate a limited number of points towards attributes in regards to combat.  This means that one cannot have every single attribute at it's strongest level, but must pick and choose in order to create a custom build.  

 

I wonder if players will have to choose a focus in their crafts as well?  There would then be different builds that exist such as someone who is good at one thing but only average at another or someone who has very basic skills in everything, even someone who is extremely skilled in one niche. The positive impact of such a system would be that players would have rely on each other through trading and such to acquire certain items that they themselves are not skilled at crafting.  In other words, I think it would balance supply and demand to create a stable economic structure.

 

 

By this paragraph you mean something in the way as a Talent tree for skills.

 

When you are at 30 points in any number of skills you cannot progress any farther

 

 

 

Alchemy level 1

Baby health Potion ------------------------ Baby Mana potion

(These would be made until level 10 each level taking 1 allocation point)

 

Alchemy level 10

Medium Health Potion ------------------- Medium Mana Potion

(At this point, leveling past this would void you out of getting max potential in ANY other skill)

 

Alchemy level 20

Huge Health Potion ----------------------- Huge Mana Potion

(You are nearly maxed in alchemy and your potions are becoming far more powerful than vendored potions)

 

Alchemy level 30

Masters' Health Potion ----------- Masters' Mana Potion

(You have spent all 30 of your allocation points to reach the max level in Alchemy. You cannot learn anything else after this.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

      And if you didn't go to level 30 you can use how ever many Allocation points you have left in another skill like Blacksmithing but this would limit you to not being able to make the best of the best armour, which could leave you broke because only the best of the best will be worth anything to other players. So overall you want to max out your points into one tree so that you can get top of the line items, making you the G's.

 

Is this sorta what you were going at?

[SDGR]

Crafting skills are something to do besides grinding. When done right, they can add to the endgame content. So IMO limiting the number of skills you can learn or the level of mastery would be dumb. They don't affect directly the combat system (unless they were designed to do so - which I doubt) so I don't see the point of forcing the player to narrow his choice to just a couple of skills.

[Savanc]

By this paragraph you mean something in the way as a Talent tree for skills.

 

When you are at 30 points in any number of skills you cannot progress any farther

 

<skill tree example>

      And if you didn't go to level 30 you can use how ever many Allocation points you have left in another skill like Blacksmithing but this would limit you to not being able to make the best of the best armour, which could leave you broke because only the best of the best will be worth anything to other players. So overall you want to max out your points into one tree so that you can get top of the line items, making you the G's.

 

Is this sorta what you were going at?

I think that would work quite well up to a point.

Just two things I think would make it work better:

 

• The skill in the example seems near to useless in the early levels. If that is the case with many or all of the other skills as well then we will only see players with just 1 skill maxed out. Considering there are a lot of skills in Eldevin I would say that you can get enough skill points to max out several skills (let's say 10%-30% of all the skills). Then people are still able to choose a few skills and find nice combinations.
• The skill in this example has a fixed amount of points per level: 1 point per level. But (based on this example) the skills seem to pretty useless in the beginning. So having a few points (and thus a few levels) in one skill will give you only a very minor bonus, while the top levels of a skill are much more powerful. This will make players max out skills instead of being content with having one or more skills at lower levels. Lower level skills might be nice too (for example being able to make small healing potions in the middle of an adventure if you run out of the big potions you bought at the store). Because the higher levels of a skill usually give the most benefits, it might as well be reflected in the number of points each level costs. For example, level 1-10 costs 1 point per level; level 11-20 costs 2 points per level; and level 21-30 costs 3 points per level. That way a full skill costs 60 points, and you can get 6 skills at level 10 or 2 skills at level 20 instead. So going for a wider variety of skills instead of just a few maxed out will be a bit more attractive then with a fixed amount of points per level.